Tuesday, January 30, 2007

hello friends,many of you know that we (me and jer) are leaving for a small alberta tour this week, January 31-February 5, we're travelling in our new beautiful 1990 dodge caravan affectionately named "Ruby Bluesmoke" with 3 other band mates, Kenton Wiens (drums), Ben Appenhiemer (bass), Jeremy Penner (wurlitzer). We"ll be hitting up Calgary, Edmonton and Camrose. If any of you live in these cities or have friends that live there, please pass on these show dates and invite them!!

Some years back, a Martyn Joseph concert for the Rogue Folk Club was the artistic and spiritual high point of my entire year. Superlatives intentional. An immense stage presence, palpable integrity, virtuostic singing voice (he's Welsh, dontcha know), singular Christian perspective in a cultural context where that doesn't often go down too well. And you should hear his cover of "One Of Us"!

Just got an email from PT actor Ian Farthing about a concert this Friday night. I'll be in a play reading as part of the Rosedale On Robson Writers Week (more about that to follow sooner or later, over on the Pacific Theatre blog), and there's no way I'm missing that, but if it were anything else, I'd be thinking of cancelling to hear Martyn again.

Here's Ian;

Hey y'all,

Martyn Joseph is a singer-songwriter from the UK who I got to know a little bit when I was working for the Arts Centre Group in London.

He is a fabulous performer and he's in town on Friday night, performing at the St. James Community Centre at 10th & Trutch in Kitsilano.

Martyn's done many a gig in Vancouver - both at the Folk Festival and at Capilano College as part of the Rogue Folk Club series. He loves BC and at one time was even thinking of moving here with his family. Well, he was thinking of moving to Prince George. God knows why.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

If that girl on the right looks familiar, maybe it's because you saw her at CONFESSIONS last fall, that's Kathleen Nisbet. (At least, I think it's Kathleen. Only, how come that other girl's got her fiddle?....)

Anyhow, she's making music tonight at the Granville Island Backstage Lounge. And so is Peter La Grand, who opened for Over The Rhine at Regent last fall. And Kenton Wiens, drummer for almost every PT show with music in the past two or three seasons, plays with Lily! Many birds, one stone.

Here's what the email said;

Lily Come Down... AND Viper Central?... AND Peter La Grand?

That's right folks - this night's a night to remember. It's a Thursday and it's a late show - not for weak constitutions.

“The best play yet!”“The play was great! I’m coming again!”“I wanted to take Aunt Bella home with me!”

"Don’t miss this opportunity to catch one of Neil Simon’s best plays! It's the summer of 1942 in Yonkers, New York. Jay and Arty are left in the care of their stern and bristly grandmother while their father attempts to earn fast money to pay off debts. While there, the boys experience family in an entirely new and bizarre way as they relate with their love-starved aunt and their mysterious uncle who appears to have ties to the mob. As the summer goes on, the boys’ presence becomes a catalyst for emotional healing in an affectionless home where people are prepared for the hard life through hard-nosed discipline and correction."

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Some of you know Joycelin from her work with Tom Cooper. She and I connected a few years back at a Student Forum: her focus was almost entirely on ministry, but she had chosen to sit with the Arts group. She's a trained pianist, and right away I started in on her, probing to see whether she was just as happy to leave her music behind, or whether there might be a place in her life to resume playing.

Saw her late last year, and I swear she was glowing. Perhaps it was entirely coincidence that she has also returned to playing the music that she loves. But I don't think so.

Anyhow, she had a performance scheduled earlier in January that was snowed out. It's been rescheduled for tonight...

Looking forward to seeing some of you tonight at 7:30pm. Xin and I will be playing some Veracini, Frescobaldi, Albinoni, Rachmaninoff, Hindemith and other great, but already dead composers who wrote for the double bass and piano. They did, however, live between the time of the 16th and 20th centuries and influenced many around them...

Come, relax, and enjoy...refreshments available in the foyer afterwards.

To book your tickets ($9-$32), call our Box Office at 604.731.5518Pay-What-You-Can Preview Nov. 23, on the night-of, at the box office, or $10 in advance.

Rosh Hashanah. 1948. When two intelligent, traumatized men meet on a park bench in Montreal, the ensuing struggle is at turns tender and intense. Chaim has lost all his faith; Hersh radiates his bitterness with extreme religiosity. This dialogue-driven story of hope and friendship in the face of genocide offers an intellectually vigorous discourse of great minds struggling to find common ground.

Morris Ertman, a recipient of nine Sterling Awards and a Dora Award for the Canadian Opera Company’s Beatrice et Benedict, will direct Pacific Theatre’s own Dan Amos, seen before in Halo, Shadowlands, Hamlet, and A Bright Particular Star. He is joined by Nathan Schmidt, a resident company member of Rosebud Theatre in Alberta, where he has featured in Voice of the Prairie, Cariboo Magi, and The Kite. The Quarrel features scenic design by Stephen Waldschmidt (A Bright Particular Star), stage management by Charlene Crawford (Broken), sound design by Luke Ertman (The Hungry Season), and lighting design by Graham Bedwell (Lilia!).

Midnight Theatre Collective is a new company of self-producing artists in Vancouver. It believes in the essential role of storytelling in human society, and in the power of theatre to engage and transform culture. Midnight Theatre Collective is comprised of self-producing professional artists committed to working in tandem with emerging actors and designers in the creation of passionate theatre. Dedicated to presenting both marginal and traditional stories with a creative, relevant edge, Midnight Theatre Collective is proud to premiere The Quarrel in Canada, a play in which two men ultimately learn they are seeking the same redemption, but looking down different pathways to find it.